Meet the new boss Same as the old boss

Well that didn't take long, did it.

Human Rights Watch denounces Egypt's ban on strikes and protests

Strike ban plan is a 'betrayal'

The International Trade Union Confederation has branded a plan to outlaw strikes by Egypt's military government "a betrayal of the revolution." It demanded on Tuesday that Prime Minister Essam Sharaf scrap the proposed decree.

Egypt urged to scrap draft law outlawing protests and strikes

Last week’s decision by Egypt’s military rulers to criminalize the kind of protests and strikes that drove Hosni Mubarak from office makes one wonder whether that country has just experienced a democratic revolution, or a military coup that rode into power on the coattails of the popular uprising.

The new anti-strike law does not prohibit strikes and protests, Minister of Justice Ahmed El-Guindy told a press conference today.

“We as a government believe in the right to protest as long as it does not disrupt work, cause chaos and are held through legitimate channels,” El-Gunidy said in the press conference held at the cabinet offices.

El-Guindy added that he wants to “assure” Egyptians that they still have the right to protest. He said that the ministry has noticed that chaos broke out during recent protests and strikes and that they ask the Egyptian youth to help stop some of the strikes, which are ignited by members of the old regime.

Since the law was approved by the cabinet last Wednesday, nationwide protests have broken out against a law that many believe violates the values of the January 25 Revolution. The Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions has organized a march for later today from the Journalists Syndicate to the cabinet offices in protest at the law.

Political groups and activists are angry about the law which bans strikes, protests, demonstrations and sit-ins which interrupt private or state-owned businesses and carry a maximum sentence of one year in prison with fines of up to LE500, 000 to anyone who calls for or incites these actions.

Many have claimed that the law violates all the values of the January 25 revolution, in which the right to freedom of expression was one of the core demands.

Another protest is to be organised in front of the Radio and TV headquarters in Maspero, in what protesters dubbed as the ‘Friday of Cleansing.” They are demanding that all media personalities loyal to the old regime be removed. Already three were arrested this morning in front of the building.

Protesters are also showing their solidarity with students from the Faculty of Mass Communications at Cairo University, who have been protesting for two weeks demanding that Sami Abdel Aziz, dean of the faculty, steps down because of his ties to the former ruling National Democratic Party.

On Wednesday evening military police stormed the university's grounds and forcibly dispersed the protesters and arrested and beat several students.

On the Facebook page of the Revolution Youth Coalition, the group announced that this protest will be to voice their anger over “the military police storming of the Cairo University campus, cutting off the electricity from the mass communication students, the physical attacks on students, their professors and those who joined their protests, and the use of electric batons to beat them and throw them out of their own university”.

The coalition added that “the Egyptian people have sacrificed many martyrs to get rid of Mubarak’s repressive regime and they are ready to sacrifice again if their freedom is taken away from them once more.”

Egypt

Protesters took to Egypt's streets in January, demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak supporters clashed with demonstrators in Tahrir Square, which became the focal point of protests in the capital, Cairo. More than 300 protesters were killed in the uprising. Although Mubarak pledged not to run again, fired his government and appointed a vice president for the first time in his three decades of rule, the protests intensified until Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that the president had handed over power to the military.

Protesters have continued to demand that the military rulers carry out reforms. On March 19, Egyptians voted in favor of constitutional changes that include limiting how long presidents can serve and determining who can run for office. However, many opposition leaders said the vote was rushed. The military government has said it will lift the country's three-decades-old state of emergency before parliamentary elections scheduled for September. Presidential elections are slated to be held by November at the latest. Bloggers and activists have called for 1 million Egyptians to gather in Tahrir Square on April 1.

Wont Get Fooled Again

Paul Goodman on Youth Revolt in the Middle East

In light of the youth revolt spreading through out the Middle East, I thought this quote from the American anarchist Paul Goodman was appropriate, it comes from the sixties youth revolt in the U.S. which he participated in.

And there is an authentic demand for Young People's Power,
their right to take part in initiating and deciding the functions of society
that concern them—as well, of course as governing
their own lives, which are nobody else's business.
Bear in mind that we are speaking of ages seventeen
to twenty-five, when at all other times the young
would already have been launched in the real world.
The young have the right to power because they are
numerous and are directly affected by what goes on,
but especially because their new point of view is
indispensable to cope with changing conditions, they
themselves being part of the changing conditions.
This is why Jefferson urged us to adopt a new
constitution every generation.

And while American youth in the sixties were protesting the Viet-Nam war and demanding Free Speech on campuses they were experiencing a capitalist economy that was booming, despite that boom their alienation from the old Left and old Right and the rule of old men was not unlike their counterparts today in the Middle East.

A coalition of six youth groups that emerged from Egypt’s revolution last month has refused to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who arrived in Cairo earlier today, in protest of the United States’ strong support for former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who was ousted by the uprising.

This juncture may be unprecedented in modern Arab history. Suddenly, despotic regimes that have been entrenched for fourty years and more seem vulnerable. Two of them – in Tunis and then in Cairo – crumbled before our eyes in a few weeks. Others in Tripoli and Sanaa are fighting to survive. The old men who dominate the rest suddenly look their age, and the distance between them and most of their populations, born decades after them, has never been greater. An apparently frozen political situation has melted overnight in the heat of the popular upsurge that began in Tunisia and Egypt, and now is spreading. We are all privileged to be experiencing a world-historical moment, when fixed verities vanish and new potentials and forces emerge. Perhaps one day some of us can say, as Wordsworth said of the French Revolution, “Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven.”

At its core, the uprising from Tunis to Sana is a youth revolt and it can be sparked elsewhere in the world, whether the local government is run by monarchs, generals or kleptocratic elected officials.

Observers have identified decades of oppressive rule and growing economic disparity as the main factors behind the Arab upheaval. One aspect that has not received adequate attention is the anger of the region's youth populations, educated and unemployed, most of whom have known only one ruler in their lifetimes. Products of high fertility rates and low investment in education and job creation, these young adults fear ending their lives as poor, unmarried and marginalised in their own societies. They demand democracy in order to take charge of their lives and to build a future, but what they crave most is the dignity of employment and a normal family life.

Population growth in the Arab region followed by rise in life expectancy has created a youth bulge, not unlike in India. The total number of youth (those between the ages of 15 and 24) has grown nearly two and half times in 30 years, with 60% of Arabs aged between 15 and 59 years. (In India, the same demographic accounts for 56.9%.)

This young workforce and low dependency rate would have been welcomed as a "demographic dividend", as it is in India. In theory, young workers could have supplied the world's labour force and - with only 6% of the population over 60 - increased the savings rate. But the region's failure to generate employment and offer education and skill-sets matching jobs has instead created a demographic disaster. The region's single largest unemployed group comprises educated youth below 25, whom a recent ILO report on unemployment called a "lost generation".

Mother Tells UN’s Ban How Son’s Suicide Sparked Tunisian Revolt

“I am proud of my son, my son who contributed to the liberation of Tunisia,” Manoubieh Bouazizi said following her 10-minute meeting with Ban at the Regency Hotel in Tunis. Her comments in Arabic were translated into French by one of her daughters. “I am sure where my son is, he is happy.”

To support his extended family, including a sister at university, Bouazizi sold fruit and vegetables on a street in rural Sidi Bouzid, a four-hour drive from the capital. He was harassed and heckled by local police for not having a permit and his cart, the source of his livelihood, was confiscated. That final humiliation was the last straw.

“The real violation was the affront to Mohamed Bouazizi’s sense of human dignity,” Ban said. “The daily indignities, the crushing of a people’s potential.”

Students study unrest in the Middle East

Faris said the recent Arab revolutions are all important waves of democracy. He said the incident in Tunisia where a fruit-seller set himself on fire to protest the government was the catalyst in Egypt. There are many other factors to the recent revolts and one very notable cause is the passion of the youth. The youth make up the most of the population of the protesters.

Fashandi said the role young people are playing in the uprisings throughout the Middle East is vital. "It is amazing to see the factors which separate the Egyptian people such as religion and social class, and instead focuses on the common goal of basic human rights and democracy," said Fashandi.

Faris said it is important to note that the youth are at the forefront of the revolutions in the Middle East. "What happened in Tunisia and Egypt is a reminder to all of us that young people really do have the power to bring about important changes, both in the Middle East and here."

SEE:

For the Revolutionary Youth in the Middle East

Sabotage

Starting with the Luddites, the 19th Century machine breakers, sabotage was one way workers resisted exploitation on the job, by stopping the machines that made them work harder. In the 21st Century the new sabotage is to resist work, especially 'team work' and all the management participation programs by becoming disengaged from the work you do, in other words, by marking time on the job, taking sick time, stress leave, and when you are working doing as little as possible.

a recent Gallup survey of 47,000 workers around the world which showed that that Australian workers are among the most dissatisfied in the world with only 18 percent of Australian respondents saying they are fully engaged in their work.“Compounding these results,” writes John Belchamber, “is the finding that almost two thirds of Australian employees are emotionally detached from their employer and only do the minimum amount of work to avoid getting dismissed. 20% of dissatisfied respondents describe themselves as ”actively disengaged” – disliking their organisation, hating their boss and being indifferent to their job. But rather than leaving their jobs, they’re spending their time spreading their negativity amongst others in their team’s.” At the bottom of the table: Singapore and China. A staggering 98 per cent of employees in those two countries admit they’re disengaged with their work, preferring to be doing something else somewhere else. Twenty-three per cent of the British and Kiwis are engaged, one in five Canadians are happy with their work, and in the US, surprisingly, 28 per cent of workers experience high rates of job satisfaction. Overall, the global average is 27 per cent.The problem of employee disengagement is now widely recognized. Its cost to the bottom line has been demonstrated. Actively disengaged employees erode an organization’s bottom line, while
breaking the spirits of colleagues in the process. Within the U.S. workforce, Gallup estimates this cost to the bottom line to be more than $300 billion in lost productivity alone.

Rather than making work productive perhaps it is time we abolished work, wage slavery that is, replacing it with another concept; play. Making work not about production but about our pleasure and happiness, rather than the drudgery we face day in day out, no matter how many happy managers we have telling us to be happy. The work we do is not satisfying our emotional and human needs, it is not playful or fulfilling, it is simply a way of paying the bills.

Or as Herr Doctor Marx once said communism means there is no contradiction between play and work since “nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes . . . to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic” (The German Ideology, Tucker, 160).

It’s not so much what you do, or the money you make, but the level of satisfaction you have with your work and yourself that is of ultimate importance. Your level of job satisfaction carries into all other areas of your life, consciously or subconsciously.

But because most people’s mindset is “how can I work less and play more”, they live for the weekends, obsess about vacations, and dream of the day they retire. (I can’t tell you how many friends and family members I’ve seen fall into a major depression within months of retiring due to the shock that it doesn’t really fulfill their life’s dream) Their sole motivation for work is to not have to work anymore.

Work is work - whether you love it or not. A job is still a job and at it’s core it’s about making money for survival. And while I love what I do, if money was no object, I’d much rather be traveling with my wife, playing with my dog, or dominating 12 year olds in Call of Duty.

According to Frost and Klein (1979), play and work probably lie on a continuum.
However, play can be differentiated from work by defining their unique characteristics.

What makes play "play" and work "work"? Play has at least four fundamental qualities that distinguish it from work; it is designed primarily for its own enjoyment, it is controlled by the child, it has a dose of fantasy, and it is internally motivated.

Play is designed primarily for its own enjoyment. Typically, the process of play
is what is important, not the product. However, work is designed for a product. Work is engaged in for what may be gained as a result (Lefrancios, 1986).
The quality and quantity of play is controlled by the child (McKee, Play working
partner of growth, 1986). When the child decides that he or she no longer wants to play, all the adult encouragement cannot recover the play. However, work is controlled by others. In fact, if a child is required to continue to play even when he doesn't want to, it turns into work.

Work is typically designed for a product, controlled externally, based on reality,
and externally motivated. When a person is required to work, a product is usually
expected to stem from the work. Furthermore, this product is often judged by some
criteria as reflecting "good" work or "poor" work. The judging criteria is determined by some external "correct" model. Good work is reinforced, poor work is usually reprimanded.

Because work entails a product and a judgment, people can easily determine
whether change has taken place in the person’s behavior. Thus, if the product comes closer with the model, or the person produces more (i.e., quality and/or quantity increases) one can say behavior has changed or learning has taken place.
The influences of work is not always with a product. Work is also associated with
stress, ulcers, suicide, feigned illness, etc. It is interesting to note that as our schools have instituted more product oriented teaching, there has been an increase in the incidence of stress and other problems with children.

Has the time come to abandon the Protestant work ethic? As technology advances and the structure of work changes, Pat Kane suggests a different, more creative philosophy to suit the new era

DOES the devil necessarily make work for idle hands? The most momentous changes in the structure of employment are upon us: it is time we looked anew at our oldest prejudices. With the information age transforming all social co-ordinates, we should think about a replacement for the work ethic - in a world where work, as we know it, is evaporating before our eyes. I bid for the play ethic.

The objection to this is simple: how can you sustain a work ethic, when work itself is deconstructing before our very eyes? The massive shifts towards short-term contracts, part-time work, self-employment and manufacturing-to-services are well enough documented. Their causes - new technology, global competition, individualism - are recognised and accepted by most of us. And it is a standby of current social thought that the relentless automation of labour - mental and manual - is laying in store an unemployment problem of massive proportions.

Around 75% of the labour force in any industrial nation is doing little more than simple repetitive tasks, and is thus potentially automatable: less than 5% of companies round the world have begun to use new technologies fully in their workplace (an excerpt from Jeremy Rifkin's The End of Work).

Intellectually at least, the case can be made for play's virtues. Psychologist DW Winnicott cited play as the "creation of personality" - that exciting sharing of self and world that make new ideas possible. The Dutch historian Johan Huizinga has called us Homo Ludens: in that exhaustive book, he states that "pure play is one of the main bases of civilisation". And in the sciences of complexity, play is regarded as the central process that brings order to the chaos of natural creation - in the words of biologist Brian Goodwin, "our creativity is essentially similar to the creativity that is the stuff of evolution".

Of course there can be a downside to ending the work play divide.

According to Prensky, for Digital Natives "play is work and work is increasingly seen in terms of games and game play".²¹ This ethos has not gone unnoticed by some larger organizations, such as the American Army. The army has changed their approach to recruit instruction. Since the majority of the American army's recruits are between the ages of 18 and 22 and require wide- ranging training, the army has developed "an extensive array of gaming simulations"²² to help teach their recruits with great results.

But let's leave the last word to someone who understood the work play dialectic well, Mark Twain;

Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it–namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

Take This Job And Shove It



SEE:

tick-tock-we-live-by-clock

The End Of The Leisure Society

Black History Month; Paul Lafargue

Take Time From the Boss

Work Sucks

Time For The Four Hour Day

Goof Off Day

The Right To Be Greedy

Harper Prorouges Parliament Over Afghan Torture

Remember Harper's War...the one in Afghanistan that hasn't been discussed in this election campaign....yet. It was only a year ago he prorogued parliament to avoid being found in contempt of parliament over what the Government knew about the torture of captured prisoners in Afghanistan. And despite an all party committee created out of this confrontation, we have not heard boo out of them for the past year.

Afghanistan detainee torture timeline - Editor's Notes

THE HARPER GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN OPEN AND HONEST ABOUT THE WAR
Unfortunately, ministers and senior officials in the Harper government have continued to mislead the Canadian public - either through the suppression of information on the spurious grounds of “national security”, or through outright lies. When The Toronto Globe and Mail requested information regarding human rights abuses in Afghanistan (under a freedom of information request), the document released by the government was heavily censured. The blacked out sections referred to the high rate of extra-judicial executions, torture and illegal detentions of battlefield prisoners. Later, General Rick Hillier justified this censorship by declaring that any information on the treatment of detainees captured by Canadian troops would be suppressed because it was “an operational security issue”. The government wants to keep us in the dark in order to hide the war crimes that have been committed in the name of all Canadians in Afghanistan.

Denial and deceit: The Harper government and torture in Afghanistan

When allegations that battlefield detainees were facing torture in Afghan prisons first erupted, Prime Minister Stephen Harper dismissed them as Taliban lies and terrorist propaganda.

But the Canadian government had been warned by one of its most senior diplomats in Kandahar a full year before, in May 2006, of "serious, imminent and alarming" evidence of prisoner abuse.

Colvin’s allegations emerged because he was called to testify before the Military Police Complaints Commission, a body—established after the Somalia Inquiry—which has been investigating detainee transfers at the request of Amnesty International and the BC Civil Liberties Association. The Harper government sought to block Colvin’s testimony before the MPCC, citing national security. The obstruction prompted the three Canadian opposition parties to call Colvin to testify before a Parliamentary committee.

Canada's international war crime: Harper government's deception cannot hold—do citizens of the 'New Canada' care? November 24, 2009

Stephen Harper Gambles on Prorogue Shutting Down Parliament Again

The same cannot be said of this second prorogue action.

Critics immediately lashed out at the government for what they claim are Harper’s actual rationales for such a move; to delay all Commons committees, including the ongoing investigation into allegations of detainee abuse in Afghanistan, and to pad the Canadian Senate with the appointment of 5 Conservative nominees, which effectively destroys the Liberal control of the body.

It also provides the ruling Conservatives more control as to when and if to call the next election, by making votes on the budget and the throne speech issues of confidence in Parliament.

Ralph Goodale, the Liberal House Leader said Harper’s decision was “beyond arrogant” and that his justifications for it are “a joke; it’s almost despotic.”

In an interview with the CBC from Phoenix, Arizona, Goodale said, “Three times in three years and twice within one year, the prime minister takes this extraordinary step to muzzle Parliament. This time it’s a cover-up of what the Conservatives knew, and when they knew it, about torture in Afghanistan. So their solution is not to answer the questions but, rather, to padlock Parliament and shut down democracy.”

From Vancouver, NDP House Leader Libby Davies told CBC news she was “appalled” by Harper’s decision, accusing him of “running from” the growing pressure by opposition parties into the Afghan detainee inquiry. “By proroguing Parliament, he is unilaterally making a decision to stop any kind of disclosure from happening,” said Davies.

The allegations by Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin regarding the treatment of prisoners by the Afghan government following their handover by Canadian armed forces, and his assertion that the Prime Minister and his government were aware of these practices, has clearly rattled Harper and his Conservative minority to the core.

The Canadian Afghan detainee issue concerns questions about actions of the executive branch of the Government of Canada during the War in Afghanistan in regards to Canada transferring Afghan detainees to the Afghan National Army (ANA) or the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS). This issue has at least two distinct subcategories:

The first issue concerns whether or not the executive branch of the Government of Canada knew about alleged abusive treatment of Afghan detainees by those Afghan forces. Particularly at issue are questions of when the government of Canada had this alleged knowledge. The question of "when" is important because it pertains to their responsibility to act on knowledge of mistreatment of detainees. That responsibility is outlined in the Third Geneva Convention, which Canada is a party to. Article 12 states that "the Detaining Power [(in this case Canada)] is responsible for the treatment given [to prisoners of war]".

The second issue arose in March 2010, when allegations surfaced that the government did more than turn a blind eye to abuse of Afghan detainees, but that Canada went even further in intentionally handing over prisoners to torturers.^[1] The allegations were sparked by University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran, who claimed that full versions of government documents proved these claims. If the allegations are true, Canada could be considered guilty of a war crime, according to critics.^[1]

Subsequently, the Canadian House of Commons has been the scene of a showdown, as opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) have tried to force the government into releasing said documents in full, unredacted form. The controversy over the documents was fueled further when Parliament was prorogued at the end of 2009. The government maintained that they had a duty to protect Canadian troops and citizens as the documents contained sensitive information, while opposition MPs have argued they have the parliamentary privilege to see them. At the request of the Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, the opposition parties and the government worked together to organize a system to determine what documents were sensitive or not, so that they could be released to MPs. The Canadian public, which generally holds the view that there was knowledge of detainee abuse by military or government officials, now awaits for a clearer picture of the issue as these documents are released.

Afghan Detainee Torture: The Issue That Grew, and Grew, and Grew

The prime Minister’s initial reaction to this demand, made late last year, was to shut down Parliament for two months, but now that Parliament is back in session, the issue is back on the table. The fallback position was to appoint retired judge Frank Iacobucci to review the documents and advise the government on their release. The opposition parties have, rightly, rejected this as a delaying device and a diversion from the real issue of Parliamentary supremacy. Instead, they have sought a Speaker’s ruling that Members’ privileges have been breached by the government’s refusal to comply with the resolution of the majority of the House. If the Speaker upholds the House, we could see a vote to hold the executive in contempt of Parliament – something unprecedented in parliamentary history. The government, on the other hand, could interpret this as a vote of non-confidence, and precipitate an election.

The constitutional issue has taken on a life of its own, but it is well to remember the original cause for this grand confrontation. We should ask ourselves why has the government gone to such extremes – even precipitating a constitutional crisis – to avoid investigation of the torture issue, if they do not have something they are desperately determined to cover up? If suspicions are really unfounded, why not call a public inquiry like the Arar or Air India inquiries?

One hint that something darker may be involved has emerged recently: evidence that the Special Forces unit, JTF2, and CSIS, were involved in interrogation of prisoners before their transfer to the Afghans. This raises the uncomfortable possibility that transfers might have been a kind of instant rendition to place them in the hands of those who were expected to use methods that Canadians could not employ, but might profit from.